Skip to Content
Uncategorized

A Facebook Phone Cometh? We’ll Find Out Tomorrow

Facebook will announce its ‘New Home on Android’ tomorrow, and we’ll be updating live from Menlo Park.
April 3, 2013

Facebook is slated to make an Android-related announcement tomorrow at its Menlo Park, California headquarters, which is expected to include a partnership with a phone manufacturer to deeply integrate the social network on a smartphone. Whatever the news, we’ll bring you all the details here as they unfold live.

A number of reports over the past week indicate the social network will unveil Android software called “Facebook Home” on a phone made in partnership with handset maker HTC. Despite having previously denied that it is building a Facebook phone, speculation has long brewed that the world’s largest social network is doing so, or at least partnering with an existing handset maker to make Facebook a more integral part of the device. The invitation to the press conference, which says, “Come see our new home on Android,” makes it clear that whatever is unveiled, Google’s mobile software will play a big part.

Facebook has been doubling down on its mobile efforts lately (see “How Facebook Slew the Mobile Monster”), as more and more of its users interact with the site via smartphones and tablets–a big change from the laptop and desktop computers that were the norm when the social network emerged in 2004. Since last May, it has gone from bringing in hardly any revenue from its mobile apps to reporting $305 million from mobile device ads in the October-December quarter, and it’s clearly hungering for other ways to increase revenue.

Tune in tomorrow at 10 a.m. Pacific time for more details as they unfold, including commentary from the Facebook executives who are making the announcement!

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.